Smedley was born on 2 January 1943 in Perth, Western Australia where he completed his secondary education at the Christian Brothers' Aquinas College.
He rose through the ranks to hold a number of senior positions including executive director of Downstream Oil and Chemicals from 1990 to 1992 and executive director of Coal and Metals for Shell Australia from 1986 to 1990 and area co-ordinator Central America, Caribbean and South America for Shell from 1982 to 1986.
[3] In addition to a major restructure of the business and the overhaul of its systems, Smedley successfully pursued series of major acquisitions including the acquisition of the State Bank of New South Wales and the Australian Australasian operations of global fund managers Prudential and Legal & General.
[9][10] The ability of Smedley and his management team to achieve demanding, publicly declared objectives and consistently and substantially outperform them was widely acknowledged by business commentators.
This resulted in an alienation of the hospitals' primary customers, their specialist doctors, who then referred their patients to other health care providers.
In the 2019 Queen's Birthday Honours Smedley was posthumously appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for "significant service to the community".